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Thursday 4 December 2014

Hanging by a thread

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@moshiology Tell us, we want to know! How did this feel??? #Bungee #Uganda: image via #DiscoverUgandaTV @thePearlGuideUg, 4 December 2014


Before the light radiates, where do you place it,
back there or out here in the pre-world
of street riot and armed detachments
grown commonplace, where the beam rotates like a mars light,
thought is as cautiously leashed as a bungee cable jumper

entrusted to a body beyond your body -- is there
a body there, is it real, can you touch it
through the dark fire of the pre-world
that closes in?  The presence of energy within
the elastic net fate weaves is the reckless

daredevil of the pre-world; fate allows it three
leaps, two snaps back, causing suffering,
causing hells; creating the body of desire,
suspending it in the vastness of space,
expanding it, disrupting it, offering it intense

resistance, whereof it can know itself.



File:Bungee jumping outside Macau Tower.jpg

Bungee jumping outside Macau Tower: photo by Ellanor, 6 October 2001


  Palestinian protesters try to climb the Israeli separation barrier during clashes at the Qalandia checkpoint following the funeral of a young Palestinian: photo by Federico Scoppa / Corbis via the Guardian, 30 November 2013



Freedom: image via Minister Flashes @Federal_flashes, 2014

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"Protect and serve, that's a lie! Why did Garner have to die?" #ICantBreathe: image via Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal, 4 December 2014

File:Bungie-Jumping.jpg

Bungee jumping in Viaduc de la Souleuvre, Normandy: photo by Chmoeul, 2005


43-metre bungee jump, Kawarau Bridge: photographer unknown, n.d.


Macau Tower: View from top: photo by Maitreya 8 (Mahesh Rao), 7 October 2011


Macau Tower: View from top -- as seen from the glass bottom: photo by Maitreya 8 (Mahesh Rao), 7 October 2011


Windows, Tokyo: photo by Tinu Bao, 25 December 2006

<i>Vertical Horizon</i>, page 27

Quarry Bay, Hong Kong, where the original bay disappeared due to land reclamation: photo by Romain Jacquet-Lagrèze / Rex Features via the Guardian, 6 May 2013

Would-be immigrants on a fence separating Morocco from the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla.

Would-be immigrants on a fence separating Morocco from the north African Spanish enclave of Melilla. Some 14,000 people rushed the fence last year, with 2,000 making it in: photo by Blasco Avellaneda via The Guardian, 30 November 2014



Melilla, Spain. African migrants sit atop a border fence, as Spanish Civil Guard officers stand under them during an attempt to cross into Spanish territories, between Morocco and Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla: photo by Reuters via The Guardian, 3 December 2014


IMG_8128 (ladder): photo by locaburg, 9 November 2010


Welders' ladders, Taipei: photo by Aaron Aardvark is... (AntEater Theater), 16 April 2012


Under stands, Eugene, Oregon: photo by Aaron Aardvark is... (AntEater Theater), 18 July 2010


A Ladder: photo by Duncan Jones, from The Little Wooden Boy, 31 July 2013


Ladder and winch: GKN, Screw Factory, Smethwick: photo by Martin Robert Smith (TranKmasT), 5 March 2010



Ladder, Portland: photo by Austin Granger, 4 April 2014

Sometimes you have to close your eyes and jump!! #macao #bungee #tallestbungeeintheworld: image via Go! Girl Guides @GoGirlGuides, 16 October 2014 
 
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Wuuujjjuuuu. #bungee: image via Coach Barbara @Barbaradelar, 30 November 2014

Crazy man @AaronVFX #bungee: image via Catherine Slater @damasuerte, 25 October 2014

BREAKING PHOTO: ARIAL FOOTAGE: #Nyc #EricGarner: image via TheAnonMessage @TheAnonMessage, 4 December 2014

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Westside Highway in #NYC shut down by #EricGarner protesters: image via Urban Cusp Magazine @UrbanCusp, 4 December 2014

It's easy to read #EricGarner's final words and feel like he's speaking for thousands: image via Brooke Jarvis @brookejarvis, 4 December 2014

A grand jury will soon decide whether to indict the NYPD for the death of #EricGarner: image via Staance @staance, 4 December 2014


And another photo of me!! Thanks for taking my photo! #bungeejumping #interlaken #switzerland #lake #awesome #cablecar: image via A C Car @acablecar, 8 November 2014

4 comments:

erin said...

knowing ourselves in the place of resistance, yes. and your poem, yes!

however...

the photograph of quarry bay, hong kong - what staggering indecency! yet this is an intellectual reaction. eric garner's last words and photo, here is where the spirit reaction takes the floor. this is one of those times when my body wishes the lie of photography, the frozen moment, might open up said moment and re-write the next, where men stand up, dust their pants, realize their place in community (the largest sense of the word) and live together.

your relentlessness is always difficult, tom. and of course, this is the point. nothing is isolated. nothing is only itself. metaphor is metaphor because axiom underlies everything and axiom doesn't mean final statement, but initial one, which (should) intone(s) active conversation, dialogue.

jesse said...

Hanging by mine out here. Thanks for that, another really illuminating gaze at the body, bodies. What connects bodies is not what keep them apart. I am wearied by the frenzy of so many in denying their place in the body, just seeking to command and not know that which is them and us.

Alright, on towards lunch, I need some connection with the world. Neither co-workers or work will connect with me today, I can't help but notice the freedom brought by a light day(no tasks for about a week and a half) can't be capitalized into social, pleasant reality with my fellow workers. I have it too good in too many afterwork hours! Songs and playing tonight, spontaneous connection. But this job kills the spontaneous. Like so much of that which is highly valued, don't even try to think of mixing in some real value. They will just stare and move the line. I know because I try and must deal with the consequences. SUCH GOOD CONSEQUENCES! As always I will share, maybe that line will get them someday, but I get the larger share today.

As always, even when not shouted out into your virtual place, thanks for the camaraderie!

TC said...

Erin and Jesse, your very interesting words have been rolling about in my useless head all day until it feels a bit like a bowling alley up there.

Well, I suppose it's more or less routine around here to think things are hanging by a thread. Really should apologize for that. Also the evident ADD, or possibly simple dementia, do the nuances matter any more. Perhaps one ought to get out more. Have a picnic maybe.

On the other hand, what's out there but a lot of rain falling and people in dark glasses pulling over in their cars in the middle of traffic to spend ten and a half minutes of their lives telling us that there's a crisis, everything's hanging by a thread?

TC said...

And by this inductive method (CIA or KIA, does it really matter?), has anyone yet come up with the answers those who live in their cars, not to mention the rest of us, sorely need?

Who is winning? What is occurring? Who's on first?